For the purposes of this specification, the present invention will generally be described in relation to impairment caused by alcohol, drugs and medical conditions. However it should be understood that the invention is not so limited, and may be applied and/or used to detect impairment in a wide variety of other applications, including but not limited to impairment due to toxic chemicals in the environment, chemical imbalances in body, changes to mental status, insufficient sleep, changes to blood sugar levels, divided attention, vision changes, hearing changes, use of a mobile device while walking or using a vehicle, and/or other similar causes.
Humans have developed a society in which certain drugs (e.g., alcohol and prescription medications) are legal. There are restrictions on the use of these drugs, and legal ramifications for exceeding the bounds of the law. Whether a human is within the legal limits of drug use or not, the consumer of the drug may experience effects of the drug. While there are other physiological ramifications for drug use, the observable performance effect that humans perceive in the drug consumer are a result of the effect that the consumed drug has on the chemistry of human brain. For instance, alcohol affects the brain by decreasing brain activity using an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Concurrently alcohol causes an increase in dopamine production resulting in a feeling of pleasure. The inhibitory effects of alcohol affect the parts of the brain responsible for movement, balance, sensory perception, reason and memory.
For humans that have developed a dependence or addiction to drugs such as alcohol, rehabilitation programs are available. Additionally, if a person is brought up on charges for driving under the influence the offender may find themselves on parole. The offender may also be ordered to wear an ankle monitor, or a SCRAM bracelet that is able to detect alcohol consumption. Breathalyzers and/or ignition interlocks are installed in the vehicles of some offenders. Currently available to many consumers are blood alcohol content calculating systems for mobile devices to allow consumers to calculate whether or not the user has reached the legal limit.
What does not exist in the art is a system or method for leveraging the sensors of a mobile device, such as a smartphone, to detect the perceived or actual intoxication of a human using the system or mobile device. In this digital age, mobile devices are taken with consumers everywhere they go. Mobile device users are constantly interacting with their devices and even when they are not, the device is constantly sending, receiving and collecting data. Mobile devices have already proven to be useful in athletic training and tracking, and these devices find more uses in the medical field every day.
In particular, drugs and alcohol are a significant public health problem. Many crimes, accidents, and injuries result from chemical impairment. Undesirable behavior frequently presents itself when humans are inebriated because many drugs, including alcohol, impair the function of the cerebral cortex of the frontal lobe, which is responsible for the processing of information prior to acting. Some animals, such as cats, are without this portion of the brain and, as a result, immediate reaction to an action is observed in these species. In a state of inebriation, a human may have slower than usual reaction times as their ability to process information decreases.
In addition, people may have reduced judgment when they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, immediate irrational reactions once they are severely inebriated and/or other impairments. Indeed, in some cases, the undesirable behavior includes the act of consuming the impairing chemicals. Moreover, impairment can occur without the involvement of any chemicals, such as in the case of changes to mental status, insufficient sleep, medical problems, changes to blood sugar levels, divided attention, vision changes, hearing changes, use of a mobile device while walking or using a vehicle, and other causes. It should be appreciated that while this document references alcohol and chemical impairment, the inventions may be applied to other forms of impairment as well, such as the ones in the preceding sentence, traumatic brain injury, excessive fatigue, stroke damage, and other similar impairments.
Many people have had the experience of observing a friend or another individual become intoxicated and witnessed the change and the events that may lead up to life altering mistakes. On the other hand, once these mistakes have been made and the offender is then mandated by the state to reform, a monitoring system must be put in place to ensure that the judgment against the offender is upheld. In an effort to overcome this monitoring system, some offenders remove tracking devices and employ various schemes to obfuscate biological tests. In the midst of these efforts, it is often the case that, like most other people, these offenders keep a mobile device, such as a smartphone, with them nearly all of the time. Indeed, in some cases the monitoring and/or abstinence is voluntary, such as a person who is a recovering addict.
Due to the potential inability of a person to self-monitor or be accurately monitored by a friend, and the ability of penal monitoring systems to be foiled, at minimum it is desirable to employ a secondary system to monitor inebriation.
Applications also present in the medical field. After a procedure, patients are often prescribed pain killers containing codeine, Tylenol 3, or opiates that encumber the patients' ability to operate machinery such as a motor vehicle. While not severely intoxicated, patients under these circumstances could benefit from a personal monitoring system that aids the user in detecting a change in their normal performance. Prescription and other medications often come with a warning about the risk of impairment.
Finally, compliance with recommended medical testing is often difficult to obtain. Indeed, active participation in medical testing or monitoring is sometimes avoided because of the subconscious fear of a negative diagnosis. Therefore, it is desirable to perform medical diagnoses without the need for patients to take significant action or employ specialized equipment or tests.
There are significant public health and safety benefits to simplifying the detection of impairment, whether caused by alcohol, drugs, other chemicals, mental status changes and/or medical issues. Existing methods and devices for determining impairment rely on specialized diagnostic tools, examination by specialists, or a combination of these methods. Consent to testing or examination is often difficult to obtain, and compliance with recommendations that testing or examination be done is often poor.
Consequently, there is a strong need for methods and devices that detect medical and/or cognitive impairment without the need for specialized devices, examination by specialists, consent of the person being evaluated, and compliance with recommendations to be examined. To this end, it should be noted that the above-described deficiencies are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the current state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following description of the invention.